Part three. (D-don't expect them to keep coming this fast or anything--this section just happened to have a little bit less text than the rest.)

This third section focuses on Yggdra Union exclusively, and has spoilers up through BF48, as it largely discusses Nessiah and his influence on the backstory. There's also the good ol' Aerith-dies-type spoiler concerning Marietta, but. Everyone should know it by now, obviously.

As always, I don't mind if you link to this post from everywhere on the planet, since this information's meant to be shared. But credit me for the translation, and don't repost this stuff anywhere. P-PLEASE TO BE RESPECTING MY WORK :C

Vol. 3: The World of “Yggdra Union”

This world is different from Riviera in that humans are the main race—it’s a much more ordinary world. However, the fact that the fallen “Grim Angel Aries”, who was banished from Asgard for disobeying the gods during Ragnarok (and since changed his name to Nessiah), is hidden in this world is changing the world’s circumstances. Because he seeks revenge against the gods and has interfered with the world several times to further that end, this world is rapidly being thrown into a state of confusion.

The Kingdom of FantasiniaThe people who received the Holy Sword Gran Centurio from Nessiah; a monarchic state founded in the plains in the center of the continent. Although Nessiah didn’t directly will for the kingdom of Fantasinia to be formed, he has still come to use it as an instrument of his revenge as a result.

The Empire of BronquiaThe people who inherited the power of the demonic dragon Brongaa, who flew into the world from Niflheim in ancient times; a country which flourished in the mountains. Those of the Imperial family are called Brongaa’s descendants, but more strictly speaking their relationship came from a kind of contract, and they are not technically blood-related.

The VanirThe race which once flourished in the plains in the center of the continent. Despite the fact that it’s what the people of Fantasinia call them (or perhaps because of it), “indigenous people” is probably a more appropriate way to refer to them rather than “Vanir” (meaning “the ancients”).

They were already in decline at the time the monarchy was established, but because Fantasinia took their land and came to rule it in their place, the descendants of the Vanir are still hostile towards and resent the kingdom.

Aries the Fallen = Nessiah’s Reincarnation and HibernationThe exiled Aries made a contract with the people who lived in the magical village of Yumira, located in a dimensional gap through which the gods couldn’t reach. That contract entailed that in exchange for Aries’ own eye, they would help him master the “power of words”, and teach him to use that power to create a mortal body for himself. After this, using his remaining eye, Aries created the Gran Centurio, a tool that would one day become able to break the chains which the gods had forced upon him. The magical village of Yumira itself is enshrouded in mystery, and all that’s known about it is that the Yumel live there and that it’s the Mystic Witch Pamela’s birthplace.

Brongaa and the Mountains’ ReligionAttracted to the surface world by Nessiah’s sheer magical power, the high-level demonic dragon Brongaa manifested there in its natural shape, causing serious damage to the world in the process. Nessiah, fearing that Brongaa’s existence would invite the gods to interfere with the world, entrusted the power of words to one young man—“the hero Gill”—in order to suppress that threat. In the country that the land of Gill and Brongaa’s final battle would become, the original inhabitants’ mountain religion got mixed up with Brongaa’s existence, and that was the beginning of the religion in which the demonic dragon was worshipped as a wild god. The founders of the Bronquian Empire captured the hearts of the people through the fact that the Imperial family were Brongaa’s descendants, and were able to build up a grand empire.

The Power-Amassing Holy Sword, Gran CenturioThe true form of the Gran Centurio, symbol of the Kingdom of Fantasinia since its founding, is a tool that harvests people’s negative emotions and changes them into power. In order to raise the power necessary to break the chains sealing his true body, Nessiah enveloped the kingdom and the surrounding royal families in a maelstrom of war over the long years of his cycles of reincarnation. Further, although the Gran Centurio when filled to capacity with the power of hatred is a threat even to the gods, because it wasn’t made by the gods, it doesn’t hold the same rank as Asgard’s “Diviners”.

Species Directory 3: Guardian AngelsGuardian Angels are a type of angel which are given special qualities through the blessing of the gods. Their primary duty is to patrol Asgard’s last line of defense, “Heaven’s Gate”. Although only Guardian Angels are restricted, because angels are born of Asgard, once an angel is created, not even the gods can erase their existence. Though angels could “die” since the ruin of the gods, those like Grim Angels and high-level demons have special powers and can only be “destroyed”. For that reason, the act of creating angels is considered the most important object of research in Asgard, and absolute loyalty to the gods is asked of every angel born. In a worst-case scenario where there are serious problems with an angel, that angel’s power is stripped, and they are sealed and banished from Asgard as one of the “Fallen”.

Marietta, the Guardian Angel that Yggdra’s party met at Heaven’s Gate, was made a fallen angel due to the sin she committed in “Knights in the Nightmare”. After that, she connected with those of Niflheim in the separate dimension of Riviera, and became one of the high-ranking demons known as the Accursed, which is how she appears before Ein’s party.

Ito Shinichi’s Dept. Heaven secret story, part 3After the WonderSwan version of “Riviera” was finished, we still had to deal with the development of a consigned game, so we didn’t start to work on “Yggdra Union” immediately afterward. Also, in the meantime, the GBA version of Riviera was being sold, and I remember being worried that people would play it thinking it was a direct sequel and think “the game system’s all different, this sucks”. I personally like the strategy-RPG genre, and always wanted to make one. Even though it’s connected to Riviera, which was an RPG, a lot of things happened. I was finally able to make “Yggdra” like I’d always wanted to, but… the truth is, I’d used a similar game system for a PC game I submitted to a certain company’s game contest twelve years ago—and because I still had the bitter memories of that totally hopeless system, frankly, this project was filled with worries. By the way, Gulcasa and Nessiah actually appeared in that twelve-year-old game [alone out of the current cast]. I don’t really remember the fine details, but I get the feeling that Gulcasa was still all in red, and Nessiah gave off the opposite impression of his current design—you could actually tell he was a good person.

Because “Yggdra” depicts a war between royal families, it needed more characters than Riviera, so above all I tried to have a lot of people on the enemy’s side. In the end it might become an unwanted duty, but even so, I didn’t want people to think that the units were symbolic, so I put thought into the designs so as not to obfuscate the characters’ personalities, and so that furthermore the unit types wouldn’t become unbalanced. Consequently, we have examples like Eudy—in this system she’s positioned as a Witch, even though she’s the dangerous kind of person that would rather make big explosions with gunpowder than use magic. I remember it being a pretty dangerously radical setting in the document specification stage. The plans and personality traits that couldn’t be communicated in the story were carefully put into the item-morale recovery system, so I’ll be glad if you can interpret the characters’ hidden facets that way.